212 ANATID^. 



recorded of its occurrence. Mr. Bullock assured Colonel 

 Montagu that he found this bird breeding in Papa Westra, 

 one of the Orkney Islands, in the latter end of June. It 

 had six eggs, rather less than those of the Eider Duck, and, 

 like that bird, covered them with its own down. The nest 

 was on a rock impending the sea. An egg of this species, in 

 my own collection, is of a pale green colour, two inches, and 

 rather more than a half long, by one inch and three quarters 

 in breadth. 



According to Mr. Thompson, this species has been killed 

 in Ireland, and the specimen is in the collection of Mr. 

 Robert Ball, of Dublin. The Rev. Leonard Jenyns men- 

 tions that it has been killed at Aldborough on the coast 

 of Suffolk ; and M. Vieillot says it has been taken in 

 France. 



Professor Nilsson of Sweden, states that some visit the 

 most northern part of the Baltic, Denmark, and Norway. 

 A few breed in the Faroe Islands and at Iceland, but in the 

 higher northern regions they are numerous. Nova Zembla, 

 Spitzbergen, and various parts of Greenland, are annually 

 visited by these birds in vast numbers during the breeding- 

 season, and accounts were furnished by the naturalists who 

 sailed with the various Arctic expeditions of discovery from 

 this country. In the Appendix to Sir Edward Parry's first 

 voyage, it is stated by Major Sabine that this species were 

 very abundant in the North Georgian Islands, having their 

 nests on the ground in the neighbourhood of fresh-water 

 ponds, and feeding on the aquatic vegetation. Captain 

 James C. Ross, in the last published Appendix, says, " vast 

 numbers of this beautiful Duck resort annually to the shores 

 and islands of the Arctic Regions in the breeding- season, and 

 have on many occasions afforded a valuable and salutary sup- 

 ])ly of fresh provision to the crews of the vessels employed on 



